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Dating Creation
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Cultures throughout history have believed the world formed or was formed at some time in the past, so methods of dating Creation have involved analysing scriptures and some physical data.
erent cultures put the creation of the world at different dates. Many historical calendars were based on these dates. Below are some examples of proposed dates of creation, including for reference several modern views that are scientific in scope.
Maya calendar dates the beginning of the latest world cycle of time to August 11, 3114 BCE (proleptic Gregorian calendar) or Monday, September 6, 3114 BCE (Julian calendar), both using the G.M.T.
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Cultures throughout history have believed the world formed or was formed at some time in the past, so methods of dating Creation have involved analysing scriptures and some physical data.
Creation dates
Different cultures put the creation of the world at different dates. Many historical calendars were based on these dates. Below are some examples of proposed dates of creation, including for reference several modern views that are scientific in scope.
- Maya civilization - August 11, 3114 BCE
- Judaism - September 22 or March 29, 3760 BCE
- James Ussher (1654) - 23 October, 4004 BCE
- Byzantine Church calculation - September 1, 5509 BCE
- Maria de Agreda - 5199 BCE.
- Big Bang theory - the age of the Universe is between 11-20 billion years, with the most widely quoted figure being 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years.
- Radiometric dating - the planet Earth 4.55 (± 1%) billion years ago.
- Puranic Hinduism, 155 trillion years ago (50 "years of Brahma")
- Eternity - Postulate made by a number of groups including historical and contemporary scientists and certain New Age idealizations that the universe has always existed, so there is no "beginning" of the universe (though the Earth and other celestial objects may have come into being closer to the current day). One such former scientific theory is the steady state theory. Buddhists and Hindus believe in a Cyclic Universe consisting of endless cycles of the Universe expanding, contracting and subsequently reforming.
According to the Maya calendar
The Maya calendar dates the beginning of the latest world cycle of time to August 11, 3114 BCE (proleptic Gregorian calendar) or Monday, September 6, 3114 BCE (Julian calendar), both using the G.M.T. correlation, which is the beginning the Long Count, 13.0.0.0.0.
According to the Book of Genesis
The Bible begins with the Book of Genesis, in which God creates the world, including the first human, a man named Adam, in six days. Genesis goes on to list many of Adam's descendants, in many cases giving the ages at which they had children and died. If these events and ages are interpreted literally throughout, it is possible to build up a chronology in which many of the events of the Old Testament are dated to an estimated number of years after creation.
Some scholars have gone further, and have attempted to tie in this Biblical chronology with that of recorded history, thus establishing a date for creation in a modern calendar. Since there are periods in the Biblical story where dates are not given, the chronology has been subject to interpretation in many different ways, resulting in a variety of estimates of the date of Creation.
Two dominant dates for creation using such models exist, about 5500 BC and about 4000 BC. These were calculated from the genealogies in two versions of the Bible, with most of the difference arising from two versions of Genesis. The older dates are based on the Greek Septuagint. The later dates are based on the Hebrew Masoretic text. The patriarchs from Adam to Terach, the father of Abraham, were often 100 years older when they begat their named son in the Septuagint than they were in the Hebrew or the Vulgate (Genesis 5, 11). The net difference between the two genealogies of Genesis was 1466 years (ignoring the "second year after the flood" ambiguity), which is virtually all of the 1500-year difference between 5500 BC and 4000 BC.
Some Traditionalist Catholics use the year 5199 BC, which is taken from Catholic martyrologies, and referred to as the true date of Creation in the "Mystical City of God," a 17th-century mystical work written by Maria de Agreda concerning creation and the life of the Virgin Mary. This year was used by the church historian Eusebius in 324.
In the English-speaking world, one of the most well known estimates in modern times is that of Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656), who proposed a date of Sunday, October 23, 4004 BCE]], in the Julian calendar. He placed the beginning of this first day of creation, and hence the exact time of creation, at the previous nightfall. See the Ussher chronology.
On the basis of harmonization of Biblical history with Biblical archeology Gerald E. Aardsma proposed in 1995 that an ancient scribal copy error had dropped out exactly 1,000 years in traditional Biblical chronologies. This moves the Biblical date of creation back 1,000 years relative to traditional Biblical chronology estimates.
According to the Talmud
Jewish scholars subscribing to similar interpretations (mainly as given in a pre-Talmudic work, the Seder Olam Rabbah) give two dates for creation according to the Talmud. Although it is known that a literal approach is not always needed when interpreting the Torah, the midrash Seder Olam takes a literal reading of the text of Genesis. Two of the most influential rabbis commenting on the Talmud, Maimonides (Rambam) and Nahmanides (Ramban) held that Genesis should not be taken literally. Yet many classical Rabbis held to a literal reading. They state that the first day of creation week was either Elul 25, AM 1 or Adar 25, AM 1, almost twelve or six months, respectively, after the modern epoch of the Hebrew calendar. Most prefer Elul 25 whereas a few prefer Adar 25. When these dates were chosen, both were the first day of the week (Sunday), but in the modern calendar, developed later, they are not. The sixth day of Creation week, when Adam was created, was the first day of the following month, either Tishri or Nisan, the first month of either the civil or biblical year, respectively. In both cases, the epoch of the modern calendar was called the molad tohu or mean new moon of chaos, because it occurred before Creation. This epoch was Tishri 1, AM 1 or October 7, 3761 BCE, the latter being the corresponding tabular date (same daylight period) in the proleptic Julian calendar.
In Hinduism
See also
External links
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- , B. A. Robinson
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- Gerald E. Aardsma
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